


Grievance

by Kaida



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaida/pseuds/Kaida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John makes it to the veil with the use of Jade's space powers just in time to see his fellow friendleader viciously murdered by Jack Noir. Battle ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grievance

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I have ever written in my life.

John stumbled a bit as he came out of Jade’s space portal. Jade only had the energy to teleport one person as far as the veil, and the group had unanimously decided that, if anyone, John should be the one to go. He gained his footing and looked around at the bleak desolate space of the veil. He appeared to be on top of some sort of building, all grey, with a roof access to his left. As he walked to peer over the edge and see if he was, indeed, on a meteor, John heard the door to the roof access open.

“What the hell are you doing here fuckass?” an angry voice called out from the doorway. John turned around, his face lighting up.

“Karkat!” he beamed at his alien friend, instantly recognizing him through use of his favorite expletive. “Wow you really do look like an alien.”

“What the fuck did you expect John?” but John’s goofy smile sank off his face as a green static appeared behind Karkat while he stepped out of the doorway.

“Karkat look out!” John started running forward, calling on the wind for speed, but it was too late. The alien boy turned around and horror dawned on his face as Jack Noir materialized behind him and ran him through. There was a flash of green and Noir was gone, leaving Karkat to slump to the ground in a pool of his own blood. “Karkat!” John screamed and fell to his knees next to his friend.

“Oh god, oh god, Karkat. There’s so much blood, oh god.” John feebly attempted to press his hands against the wound in Karkat’s chest, coating his hands in crimson.

“John” Karkat reached towards the human boy with a pained and somewhat annoyed expression on his face. “what are you… crying about… fuckass?”

“Karkat…” John had tears streaming down his face and could barely see the other boy but kept pressure on his wound. “There’s so much blood.” He sniffled.

“Fuck.” Karkat seemed to be losing hold of consciousness. His eyes were glazing and his head lolled to the side on the cold rooftop.

“Karkat stay with me. You can’t die Karkat. You just _can’t_ ” John shook him a little to try and bring him back. “We have so much to do still. We just met. I mean, we still have to have a movie marathon and I haven’t shown you con air…” As hard as John tried to keep hold of his friend’s consciousness, he was losing him. Karkat’s eyes stared out at nothing and his hands were limp.

“No. No. Karkat.” John slumped over the body of the friend he had finally met just a few minutes before, tears streaming down his face and onto his blood soaked hands. There was an electric crackle and a flash of green behind him. Jack had returned.

“ _You._ ” John felt the winds whip around him as he straightened and called on their strength. His mind was set on nothing but destroying the beast that had killed his friend; and he soon found himself floating off the ground, tears still streaming down his face and wind shrieking about him with the force of a hurricane as he turned to face his foe.

Jack didn’t even have time to pull out his sword before John had wrapped the winds around him, Slicing into his body and ripping at his wings. Jack struggled inside the maelstrom to pull his sword even as the gale pulled at his arms. Finally after a brief fight against the wind, he managed to pull out his sword and in a green flash the cocoon of wind was torn to shreds.

John registered this deep down but on the surface he couldn’t think. His mind was blank white and he couldn’t even feel as Jack came hurtling across the roof and slammed into him. Instantly some force deep inside the boy created a cushion of air to keep the two from falling off the edge of the roof. His assailant lifted his sword and plunged it over and over into the boy’s chest; but every thrust just made the boy glow brighter with energy until finally even Jack’s somewhat limited canine sight was blinded and he had to back away and cover his eyes.

The boy remained where he was, floating eerily on the edge of the roof, Power shining around him and dripping glowing blood. He raised a hand and the winds responded, once again called to tear at his foe. This time all the power he had flowed into the gale ripping at Jack was slicing at his own arm as well, but he didn’t seem to care. John lifted Jack and slammed him into the ground and then lifted him and slammed him again. Jack’s eyes widened in surprise at the gross miscalculation he had made of his opponent. It was as if this was not even the same boy and he shuddered as he looked into his cold and empty glowing eyes. As a final act, John created a vacuum and stole the air from Jack’s lungs and watched while he struggled against being torn apart from the inside. As John held him in the air, there was a green crackle and Jack’s body fell from the prison of air to lay motionless on the ground.  
John slowly landed on the ground and stumbled toward the body of his best friend. He reached out toward Karkat, mid still foggy and vision blurry and collapsed next to him.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sounds of yelling leaked into John’s head. He could hear their urgency but for some reason his mind told him that he did not want to wake up; that there was no reason to.

“Human! Wake up!” John was starting to make out words and could no longer stave off consciousness. As his mind wound its way to the surface, vague memories of what had happened came back to him and tears welled in his eyes. He opened them to see himself reflected in pools of scarlet and quickly closed them again, memories of that same red too fresh on the surface of his mind. He tried opening them again and saw that the red was retreating in the form of a pair of pointy red shades on the face of a troll girl.

“Jegus I thought you’d never wake up.” John rolled to the side and saw the destruction he has caused on the roof of the lab: whole portions of the roof were missing where he could see darkness gaping at him from the labs below, the edges of the platform were little more than rubble and in the middle there was a crater covered in glowing green blood. He sobbed. “I heard this huge crashing on the roof and came up to check it out and that’s when I found you and him.” The troll girl carried on. John noticed that there was no sign of Jack Noir’s body on the roof where it should have been. “It was really lucky I found you two when I did or you might both be goners! At least Karkles would be. I can’t really tell if any of that blood is yours, it all smells like cherry red to me, but you don’t smell injured”

John could not believe how much this girl was talking, and she was sitting in the way of his view of Karkat’s body. “Karkat”

“Oh the human speaks!” the troll made a mock surprise face.

“Oh god Karkat” he sobbed. “He’s dead. I couldn’t do anything.”

“Don’t go leaking your salty delicious tears all over everything. Karkles is still alive” John stared at her, dumbstruck.

“But how? The blood, I saw him die.” He just could not bring himself to believe that what she said might be true.

“Trolls are more resilient than you give us credit for.” A shark’s grin spread itself across her face “he barely had a pulse when I got to him and he may not wake up for a while but he’ll live. Come on. We should get you downstairs too.”

John stiffly sat up, feeling like he had been punched in the gut multiple times, and finally managed to stand with the help of the strange girl. He averted his eyes from the craters on the roof and the pools of still sticky red on the ground and hobbled downstairs thankful for the troll’s support.

They walked into a dimly lit area that seemed, to John, like an infirmary where there was another troll with faintly glowing skin and neat hair fluttering over a platform with a lump on it. John had a suspicion as to what, or who, that lump was and hastened his stumbling pace to reach it, leaving the red eyed troll girl in the doorway cackling. “Here he is Kanaya. Do your worst.” She playfully mocked the stand-in physician.

“I do not appreciate that comment.” The prim troll responded. John ignored them both though, concentrating only on the table and the troll laying on it. Karkat looked pale, almost as pale as the glowing troll named Kanaya that cared for him, but he was breathing shallowly; and as John let out a sigh of relief he sank to his knees and cried again with his head next to his friend’s. Thankful that he was really alive.


End file.
